Hallmark Coach, Baggage Caboose
from a Drover car

The Hallmark model is an incorrect 4 window car, with W/C window wrong on the A side. It is a 4 window version with underbody box centered on the last panel before the baggage door. The underbody details are crude.

The model photographed above has been altered to more correctly show the prototype. In the lower photo, the small window set apart used to be on the other end of the car. A good eye can see where the windows was plugged. The handrails from the end ladders to the roof have been replaced with those of a Santa Fe Style. The stacks were replaced with short stacks. End platform whistle/air brake castings were added. Couplers are Kadee offset to keep the car at its prototypical low height and the trucks are from ECW. The underbody was totally rebuilt from styrene and an interior was added. The tool box is my own resin casting.

From information supplied by Richard Scholz, 2312 was rebuilt from drover car #D938 on 4/15/42 at Topeka at a cost of $3982.78. Drover #D938 had been built at Topeka in December 1931. No. 2312 was originally intended for the Western Lines Trains Nos. 53 and 54 between La Junta and Amarillo. Since it was to be used in Jim Crow territory it was equipped with a drop curtain to separate four seats fro the rest in case it was needed. In May 1942 it went to the Coast Lines on the Wickenburg-Parker run, and in 1956 it was already on the Topeka-Pauline service that included the Alma branch. It was retired 3/7/68 and donated to the Wichita Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. It now resides at the Great Plains Transportation Museum in Wichita.

The car is now comfortable at the end of a Kansas local.

Modeled by J. Stephen Sandifer